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The agreement underlines the importance of public-private collaboration and highlights the Mondragon Corporation’s role as a driving force for the Basque economy as a whole. It forms part of the Basque Government’s Plan for Business Competitiveness and Social Innovation 2006-2009, approved by the Basque Parliament on 2 April 2007.

This new Agreement, covering the period 2008-2010, establishes the terms for collaboration between the DICT and the Mondragón Corporation, in five areas:

Information and Communication, facilitating the exchange of economic and business information, to achieve better knowledge of the situation and enhance mutual decisions.

Entrepreneurship, which is a new area of collaboration and aims to promote the development of new initiatives, with the following as the main spheres of collaboration: the University of Mondragón, the business project incubator CEI Saiolan, Mondragon’s Promotion Centre and Divisional Promotion units.

Business Development, which includes commitments to take action in: the development of driving-force companies, launch of new activities, development of the Garaia Innovation Park, promotion of business parks linked to research activities and services with a technological content, Logistics and Platforms in the industrial and distribution areas, and new Investment Funds, with public-private capital, to enable the funding of projects in this area.

In Technology and Innovation, a preferential area for both parties, it has been agreed to collaborate on the basis of the Basque System for Innovation Innobask, in the area of Technology Centres and Universities, promoting the new Ikerlan project on nanotechnologies, the embedded software Technology Centre in which Microsoft is participating, the future Eroski Technology Centre and the research work linked to the University of Mondragon. In product and business innovation, initiatives will be developed to help generate sustainable employment in the Basque Country, in both new and traditional sectors, with the stress on the area of Logistics, where there will be co-operation on the design of innovative management and traceability processes.

In Internationalisation, considered by both parties to be an essential factor for competitiveness to tackle the globalisation process, there will be collaboration in training, development of support structures and presence in markets abroad, with the exchange of information about markets and foreign networks, promoting the setting up of factories abroad and co-operation in the development of Technology Platforms with Centres of recognised international prestige.

The monitoring instruments contemplated by the Agreement are: a Plenary Committee presided over by the Basque Minister for Industry, Commerce and Tourism, and the President of the Mondragon Corporation’s General Council, which will meet once a year to analyse how the Agreement is being adhered to and to set objectives for the following year; and a Monitoring Committee, which will meet on a quarterly basis, to promote the carrying out of the Agreement and achieve the objectives set. 

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